Washington DC, September 12 :
The Chinese government's espionage efforts resulted in a ten-year prison term for a former CIA official.U.S. Department of Justice officials announced on Wednesday that 71-year-old Honolulu resident Alexander Yuk Ching Ma confessed to selling US secrets to China to an undercover FBI agent in August 2020, leading to his arrest.

He took full responsibility for enabling the transmission of sensitive information to intelligence agents working for the Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB) in China.

Justice Department National Security Division Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen, US Attorney Clare E. Connors for the District of Hawaii, and FBI National Security Branch Executive Assistant Director Robert Wells announced that Ma has been sentenced to ten years in prison followed by five years of supervised release.

Evidence suggests that Ma, a Hong Kong-born American citizen, served as a CIA agent from 1982 to 1989.

According to officials, Ma coordinated with a relative who was a CIA agent from 1967 to 1983 but is now dead.

According to sources, Ma and his relative were both CIA officers who had top secret security clearances and signed non-disclosure agreements. This meant that they had access to sensitive and classified CIA material.

According to Ma's admission in the plea deal, intelligence operatives from the SSSB approached him in March 2001—more than a decade after his CIA resignation—and requested that he set up a meeting between a relative and the SSSB.

Over the course of three days in a Hong Kong hotel room, Ma's relative handed over a mountain of secret US documents to the SSSB in exchange for fifty thousand dollars.

Ma began working with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in March as a contract linguist out of the Honolulu Field Office in Hawaii.

"The FBI, aware of Ma's ties to PRC intelligence, hired Ma as part of a ruse to monitor and investigate his activities and contacts with the SSSB," prosecutor's office claimed.

From August 2004 until October 2012, Ma allegedly worked part-time for the FBI at an offsite location.

The plea deal stipulates that Ma will spend the remainder of his life cooperating with US intelligence agencies, which includes being subjected to debriefings.

Ex-CIA Officer Sentenced to 10 Years for Spying for China